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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27721772">i love you, azula, i do</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/arghmuffin/pseuds/arghmuffin'>arghmuffin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Azula (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula (Avatar)-centric, the gaang visits azula</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:47:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,289</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27721772</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/arghmuffin/pseuds/arghmuffin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Slowly, Azula learns about love. Azula-centric.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i love you, azula, i do</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Azula is such a complex character, and this was super hard to write. I love her and wholeheartedly believe she should've gotten a redemption arc. I'm not sure if I did her justice, so constructive criticism is always welcome.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>/</p>
<p>Azula is not crazy.</p>
<p>She's on the ground, chains digging uncomfortably into her skin, but she barely notices; she is so desperate, and Mother is standing off to the side watching her with sad eyes. Blue flames lick the ground, and there is a boy and a girl in front of her, watching, but she doesn't care because she is sobbing. Azula is a princess, even on the ground. Princesses are not crazy. Princesses don't cry.</p>
<p>There's something tugging at the back of her head, faint but insistent. She will do anything, <em>anything</em>, to escape this, so she gives in.</p>
<p>/</p>
<p>She's five years old again, performing what she learned from her firebending lessons earlier that day in front of her father. When she's finished, forms executed perfectly, not a hair out of place, he smiles, and says, <em>good job, Azula</em>. And she beams and she's happy, because she has Father's love and nothing will take it from her. Her father is proud of her, and in that moment she vows to always make him smile like that, whatever the cost.</p>
<p>/</p>
<p>The vision blurs, and now she's in the garden, eight years old. Her mother is off to the side with Zuko, laughing and feeding the turtleducks together. Azula scowls, but she ignores them. She doesn't need turtleducks or her mother to coddle her. She needs to be strong and powerful, like Father always told her to be, so she goes back to practicing her forms, occasionally glancing at the pond. Once, her mother catches her eye and she abruptly turns away, performing a perfect spinning kick.</p>
<p>/</p>
<p>The next time she feels a pull, it's stronger. She doesn't quite want to leave here yet, and so she ignores it, but it's persistent; tugging and tugging, until she finally gives in again and lets herself be taken to where her mind leads her.</p>
<p>It's a mistake.</p>
<p>/</p>
<p>She's in a cell now, with white, stone walls. There is a bed and a chair, and everything else is virtually empty; she doesn't know where she is, but she wants to go back, back to when she was a child, back to when her father was proud of her and her mother was still there. As Azula stares out of the barred window, she hears the sound of a door opening, and turns to look at her visitor. It's him.</p>
<p>/</p>
<p>Zuko gasps quietly, obviously surprised. He looks older now, and there's a funny scar on his face that makes him almost unrecognizable, but Azula knows. Azula would recognize her brother anywhere. He's wearing rich, red robes, and a golden crown on his head, which Azula glances at absently; she's not sure what it's for, but it looks familiar.</p>
<p>"Azula, you're… awake," he says carefully, like she is a wounded animal about to lash out at any moment.</p>
<p>"Hello, Zuzu," she says haughtily. "Father wants to kill you, you know."</p>
<p>Surprisingly, Zuko lets out a huff of dry laughter. "Yeah," he says, "I know."</p>
<p>"I heard them talking about it just now. <em>You must learn the pain of losing a first born son</em>," she imitates, watching Zuko's reaction, waiting for him to say "That's not true!" or something equally amusing. Instead, he looks… sad, and says, "Yes, Azula. I know."</p>
<p>After that, Azula doesn't talk to him, even when he attempts to make conversation with her. <em>How did Zuzu know?</em> she wonders, and eventually a guard taps him on the shoulder and he stands up to leave.</p>
<p>"I'll see you tomorrow, Azula," he says, quietly. Azula keeps watching the window, but calls out when he's just past the doorway.</p>
<p>"Watch out for father, Zuzu," she tells him, not lifting her gaze from the metal bars. "I heard him and Grandfather today. He's going to kill you."</p>
<p>And with one last sad look, he sweeps up his robes and leaves. Azula continues to stare at her metal bars.</p>
<p>/</p>
<p>The next time a visitor other than Zuzu and the guards come, it is a girl in green, with a hardened look in her eyes. Azula doesn't remember her, but recognizes the weapon hanging by her waist, and recalls blurry metal prisons and white and red makeup.</p>
<p>"Azula," the girl says fiercely, glaring at her with burning intensity. Azula keeps trying to remember more about the girl, but it's like catching smoke, the memories vanishing between her fingers.</p>
<p>"I didn't want to visit you, but I needed to know," the girl says, staring at her hard. "I needed to know if you've suffered enough for what you did to me."</p>
<p>Azula speaks up then. "Fans?" she asks quietly, suddenly unsure. The girl's angry expression turns shocked, before morphing back into her previous face.</p>
<p>"Yes, I am Fans," she says mockingly, irate. "Remember? You captured me and held me in a cell while you were conquering Ba Sing Se."</p>
<p><em>Conquering Ba Sing Se</em>, is what Azula hears. Father would be proud. Father would certainly praise her and make her his heir, if she told him of her victory. She thinks of telling him now, but her mother stands in the corner, shaking her head. It makes Azula angry, the small motion, because she <em>doesn't get to judge her.</em></p>
<p>"Oh, don't pretend like you care," she spits, snapping her head to the empty corner beside Fans. Her visitor instantly has her hand on her weapon, before dropping it slowly. She looks confused now, but Azula ignores her, focusing on her mother. "You left me. <em>You</em>. You left me alone with Father, and—and—" hysteria wails in her throat, and she lets out a hoarse sob, turning away from the woman who does not love her. There is an entirely new expression on Fan's face, one born of part confusion, part… pity? Azula has always been good at reading people, but it's hard for her to comprehend people pitying her when they never have before.</p>
<p>"I'm always going to be angry at you," Fans finally says to her, walking back toward the door. Azula watches her leave, like she has so many times before, to so many different people. "But now, I also feel something else. I feel sad for you." And she's gone, and Azula's alone again.</p>
<p>/</p>
<p>Days pass before she gets her next visitor. She spends them on her bed, usually staring out the window. There's nothing to see there, really, just grey bars and beams of sunlight, but Azula sees more than that; she sees her past.</p>
<p><em>Hello, I am Princess Azula, daughter of Fire Lord Ozai and Lady Ursa,</em> she introduces herself confidently, looking at the small girl in pink and the bored girl next to her. These are her first friends, and she had liked them, a lot, before Father told her that attachments to others were a weakness. After that, she used them, because if she had any true friends she would be weak, like Zuzu is, like her mother was. But this is before, and she cartwheels with Ty Lee, running around the gardens with Mai. She wants to stay here forever, but the sound of the door opening doesn't let her.</p>
<p>Turning around, she sees a strange boy dressed in blue, an angry look on his face, like the one on Fans. A Water Tribe savage, she thinks, glancing at the sword by his waist that is Fire Nation in design. He stares at her for a second, a calculating look on his face. She notes this interestingly. Maybe he is not so stupid after all.</p>
<p>"Suki told me she felt sorry for you," he says, still assessing her and her room, white with its bare walls. "I will never forget what you did to us. But I think I do too."</p>
<p>Suki, she thinks, and remembers a dark underground cave, stone encasing her wrists, and <em>Suki what did you do to her where is she Suki I need to find her where are you</em> and she turns to her mother, watching again in the corner, saying, <em>what is wrong with that child</em>, where she thinks Azula can't hear. A lump forms in her throat, and she longs to prove her wrong, even for a second. She will help this Water Tribe boy with his Fire Nation sword find his Suki, if it will make her mother think her less of a monster, and everything will be alright with her.</p>
<p>"I put her in the Boiling Rock," she tells him, and he narrows his eyes. "Go rescue her, now, or this will all be for nothing. Father will be angry at me for telling you. Go!"</p>
<p>He looks surprised, but does as she says and turns to leave.</p>
<p>"No, wait, stay!" she says desperately, and now all she can see is Mother and Zuzu and Uncle and Mai and Ty Lee and Father, all leaving her alone, in this cold and empty cell. "Don't leave, <em>please</em>," she says, a word unbefitting for her rank, a word her father had told her to never, ever say. But Father isn't here right now, it is just her and the boy, and she is so lonely and so tired of being left behind. "I-I command you to stay."</p>
<p>The Water Tribe boy blinks once, twice, before shaking his head and turning back around. "Not even you deserved this, Azula," he says quietly. "I'm sorry." And he goes and she watches helplessly, before turning back to her window. In her window they always stay.</p>
<p>/</p>
<p>She doesn't want to see her next visitor.</p>
<p>A small, bald monk with blue arrows steps into her cell, and Azula immediately snarls, struggling against the restraints that limit her movements. <em>The Avatar</em>. It's a startling moment of clarity, knowing who he is. Some days she forgets even herself, only <em>monster, monster, monster</em> and nothing else. (Those are the worst days, the one Azula dreads the most.)</p>
<p>The Avatar looks at her solemnly, like they all do, and she doesn't want their pity but she can't stop them from giving it to her. She needs her flames, she needs to get out of her chains, she needs to <em>burn him to a crisp.</em></p>
<p>"Avatar," she smirks maliciously, with poison in her voice. "Nice of you to come visit me." She says this because bitter words are all she knows, the kind that cuts out your throat and leaves the rest of you hanging. The Avatar frowns, and looks a little confused; Azula's thinking about her flaming fist in his face, reminiscent of her father's in Zuzu's. <em>Zuzu</em>, she thinks angrily, and remembers why she hates the Avatar in the first place.</p>
<p>"Sokka and Suki told me you were acting a lot differently," he says, scratching his head. "But I guess you are Azula, no matter what state of mind you're in."</p>
<p>"Come to gloat, have you?" she spits out, and then her words take an even angrier tone. "It's all your fault! I hate you, I hate you, you took Zuzu away from me, you took everything away from me, I hate you!" she screams, because he has, because Zuzu left her to look for him more than once, because he has taken away her father (the only thing she had left, it doesn't matter that he too left her in the end) and her throne.</p>
<p>The Avatar just looks even more sad (why do they all look so sad, when they look at her?) and says he's sorry, they all say they're sorry, but in the end they leave anyway.</p>
<p>"Leave!" she screams hoarsely, because she doesn't want to see a blue arrow ever again. "You took everything from me."</p>
<p>And he goes, and it makes Azula satisfied and achingly sad at the same time. Her mind drifts off somewhere, and she can't help but think of the boy who just visited her cell. What was his name again, and why was she so angry?</p>
<p>/</p>
<p>The blind earthbender doesn't step over the doorway. She punches a hole through the wall, and just as quickly, seals it up again. Azula vaguely acknowledges her power, focusing more on her visitor. Why is she getting so many visitors? Zuzu comes often, which makes her less lonely, but she keeps seeing strange people she doesn't remember in her cell.</p>
<p>The girl is short, with milky green eyes and a casual smirk on her face. Azula knows of smirks, but hers hold a different kind of power, not one of maliciousness, but of easy strength.</p>
<p>"Hey, Crazy," she says, grinning, and it makes Azula a little angry, because she is a princess, and princesses are not crazy. "Sparky said visitors might be good for you, so I'm only doing this because I love Sparky and I'm bored. What's up?"</p>
<p>It's a while before Azula speaks. "Who's Sparky?" she asks quietly.</p>
<p>The earthbender tilts her head. "You know, Zuko. I thought you were smarter than this, Crazy."</p>
<p>Then, a memory; her father, grinning down at her, and it's a little scary but she's proud. <em>You were always smarter than your brother, Azula. You will be my wonderful heir. My loyal daughter, I will give you the power of the Fire Lord</em>. She shivers a little, of fear or excitement, she's not sure, but she's not afraid of anything so she calls it excitement.</p>
<p>"I'm going to be Fire Lord in a few days," she says offhandedly to the earthbender, and she's not sure why, but maybe she wants to gloat. Yes, that's it. "You know, on the day of Sozin's Comet. Father said I would be."</p>
<p>The blind girl shakes her head. "Sozin's Comet was weeks ago, Crazy."</p>
<p>And they're silent for a while. The earthbender taps her fingers against the white stone of her walls, and sometimes the wall moves with her. Azula stares and stares and tries to remember something, anything, but usually she comes up blank.</p>
<p>"Mother," she says suddenly. The tapping stops and the earthbender looks up in interest. Azula still doesn't know why she's telling this strange girl these things, but she's been alone for so long they come spilling out of her when she starts. It's like she's five again, revealing little secrets to her friends, not bitterly telling her life story to a tiny blind earthbender. "Mother left me first. She thought I was a monster. And then Zuzu and Uncle. To look for the Avatar. He's the one that took everything from me." Her tone takes on a steelier edge. The blind girl tilts her head to indicate she's still listening, and Azula continues.</p>
<p>"Mai and Ty Lee betrayed me." She turns her head away, clenching her fists. "The only friends I had left me for my brother. Though I guess they weren't really my friends. Father says emotional attachments to others are a weakness."</p>
<p>This is when the girl shakes her head. "Sorry, Crazy, but your father was wrong. About a lot of things, actually. But love doesn't make you weaker. It makes you stronger."</p>
<p>Her words make Azula think about how she, the one without love, is locked up in a prison, while her brother and his <em>loved</em> friends are free. She can still hear her father's words, drilled into her head from years and years of repeating. <em>Love makes you weak, Azula,</em> he says viciously, and she forces herself not to back away, to keep her calm, smirking mask on. <em>Friends will only weigh you down. Do you understand, daughter? Mai and Ty Lee are not your friends. They are people for you to use. Everyone is expendable.</em> She's five and when she's sees her frie- no, <em>tools,</em> she forces herself to think, she pastes a confident smile on her face. These are not her friends. She doesn't need any. And they only left her in the end, because they didn't fear her enough, because she should've been better at knowing her tools. (Because Mai loved Zuko, and because Ty Lee loved Mai. Love makes you weak. Weak. Or does it make you strong? Does love give you courage, does it banish fear? Mai showed her that love was stronger than fear. Or is it?)</p>
<p>"No, no, no," she says quietly, incessantly, because she doesn't know what to think anymore, because her father told her love is useless and there Zuzu is, weak and loved by his strange friends who visit her. She thinks of her mother, and how she might've loved her once, before she was a monster, before she started firebending and learning from her father. "Love makes you weak. That's what Father said. Friends will only weigh you down. Mai and Ty Lee are not your friends. They are people for you to use. Everyone is expendable. Love makes you weak. Friends will only-"</p>
<p>"Well, this was fun," interrupts the earthbender, and the words are still spinning around in Azula's head, making her dizzy. The girl stands up and slams the earthen chair she had constructed at some point back into the floor, before punching a hole in the wall again. There is a brief panic with the guards, during which the girl just rolls her eyes. "See you tomorrow, Crazy. I swear, I need to find a hobby," she grumbles, and the earthen door seals up behind her.</p>
<p>Azula thinks about love and fear and weakness. Her head runs in circles sometimes, and what she comes up with in the end scares her. Because that would mean her father is wrong, that he lied to her. <em>No, </em>Azula thinks. <em>Father believed it.</em> And for the first time, she wonders if love could be a good thing.</p>
<p>The earthbender has been surprisingly helpful.</p>
<p>/</p>
<p>Zuko and the earthbender come and go. She learns the girl's name is Toph, and sometimes she forgets and keeps calling her earthbender, but Toph waves it off. She talks to Zuko sometimes about their mother, and during those times her mother will be standing in the corner, listening, and Azula wonders if she's proud of her and Zuko for mostly getting along. When she was younger that's all her mother wanted, she remembers.</p>
<p>One day, when her brother sneaks a cream puff with her food, her old favorite, she cracks. Azula has built her armor for years now, arming herself with cruel words and the knowledge that her father is right and she is perfection. But Toph has shown a rare wisdom and made her think, and Zuko has shown her that despite everything she has done to him, everything she regrets more with each passing day, he still loves her and cares about her.</p>
<p>So when he has to leave her to his duties, to the crown he took from her, the crown that she has long stopped resenting him for, she calls out to him.</p>
<p>"Goodbye, Zuzu," she says quietly. And then, "I love you."</p>
<p>His eyes shine with a brightness, followed by a suspiciously shiny sheen. "I love you too, Azula," he says, smiling.</p>
<p>The next day, a waterbender comes before her, bringing memories of metal grates and blue flames and desperate sobbing. Azula stares at the only person who has ever beaten her, and the waterbender smiles back.</p>
<p>"Hello, Azula," she says gently, and it reminds her so much of her mother. "My name is Katara, and I'm Zuko's friend, and a waterbender." Her hands shift to the waterskin at her side, where liquid flies to her hands and glows. "I can help heal you."</p>
<p>And just like that, Azula has a new start. It's slow progress, but she's learning how to not be her father's child anymore. She has Zuko now, and sometimes his friends, wary but not hateful. Her mother smiles at her one last time before Katara lifts her hands to her head.</p>
<p>/</p>
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